Lance Armstrong appears finally to have run out of rope. (Read 2697 times)

I don't think there is any great drive to tear this guy down, as he and his lawyers continue to assert. Quite the opposite, really. Lots and lots and LOTS of people really wanted him to be clean, but most who have a clue have pretty much given in to the mountains of evidence to the contrary.

I actually think the USADA goes after just about everyone they strongly suspect of doping and the fact that just about EVERYONE involved with cycling at that level has been busted EXCEPT Lance Armstrong is quite remarkable, even given how many people stand to gain from him remaining "clean" in the public's eye.

He presents a very interesting test of how much we really want our sports to be clean. Yes, he survived cancer and he won all those tours and inspired millions of people (myself included) and raised many millions of dollars for great causes, and provided loads of entertainment, and created careers and launched industries and charitable foundations and all of that. And we all want badly for all of that to not be a lie. But some things really are too good to be true.

I'd be more interested if I believed a single guy who has appeared on the Tour in the last 15 years hadn't doped at some point.

http://www.runningahead.com/groups/Indy/forum

xor

posted: 6/13/2012 at 8:38 PMmodified: 6/13/2012 at 8:41 PM

(the following is a freeform comment, not commentary on mikey's response)

He beat cancer.

This makes a lot of people want to root for him a little extra. It is indeed a tragic thing, but it is also kind of interesting how it comes up in conversations about him... as if it is part of his "goodness" or something. I'm here to tell you that beating cancer has a shit/shinola relationship to one's merit as a person/friend/whatever or one's sense of 'good'.

Meanwhile... it makes some people extra extra curious about his ability to stay at the top of his game after something like that. The heart wants it be, the head is not sure. For some people. The folks in that "roots a little extra" group hear about these whispers and bristle.

Every cancer is different.

Every treatment is different.

Every recovery is different.

But, yeah. Shit/shinola. I don't know if he did or didn't. I think he did. This theater is showing the same feature over and over.

(although, he didn't fade away from sports, not really. He is trying hard to make a name for himself in triathlon.)

Some days I'm just happy to wake up and get my shoes on the right feet.

Interesting, Mike. Thanks for the link, actually I had never read this and it's interesting to me for several points.

I wouldn't trust Catlin as far as I can throw him. By 2005 they had already had Lagat's fiasco occur, with a renowned German PhD brought in who embarassed Catlin's lab for the way they administered the test. Shortly (several months?) thereafter there was another positive test, and the German was not available so I was contracted by the defense lawyer to witness the testing of the B sample. Yes, as a result of what happened with the Lagat sample, the lab had put in place an additional step to help try and determine if the sample had undergone degradation. But much more obvious were the steps Catlin had taken to make sure that defendants no longer had the opportunity to question their methodology. And there were still glaring errors in the way they administered the test.

I was told Catlin was unavailable that day (I had seen him jet minutes before he knew I would be out with questions) and to arrange a call to have questions answered. After a run-around I was told to submit them via email, IIRC as it's been quite a number of years, and they were never acknowledged. This pretty much jaded me on the whole lab's processes. Their #1 concern seemed to be not embarrassing themselves, not conducting tests with the utmost scientific integrity and transparency. Hardly a credible way of conducting a scientific exercise.

"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

"Cyclists may have occasionally been forced to regroup and think of how to use drugs without being caught, but they rarely stop because of the risk...Here, I think ofBernard Kohl, who has just recently highlighted just how ineffective testing is (including the passports), by his admission that for years, he used everything - Growth hormone, insulin, EPO, testosterone and blood doping, without being caught."

As I said, the tests are weak. This is why I don't give lack of a positive test so much weight in proving innocence, given the large amount of testimony and common sense (ie # of people on his team busted) pointing to the contrary.

"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

Although he doesn't have to prove innocence, some might think he'll need to.
For what its worth, I grew up idolizing Ben Johnson (1988 Olympic 100 meter winner for 24 hours...).
I'm guessing many athletes are doped up (cyclists, runners, baseball players, swimmers, and any other type of competitive sport).
But, innocent until proven guilty.
Dang, government spending for this stuff sucks, though.
Cheers,
Brian.

This is actually a very efficient way to spend money because if you can actually convict Lance Armstrong, a known doper, and strip him of his titles despite his fame, then you can discourage the practice of doping much more effectively.

I don't believe that. People are going to cheat whether the person before them was caught, or not. They are going to believe that they're exceptional and they'll never get caught. Cheating will continue no matter who is caught.

I'm very close to Trent's opinion on this one. Who cares if athletes use PEDs? What if we legalized them? What if there wasn't a stigma attached to doctors that oversaw their use? What if there was more and better research on PEDs because of that?

I've come to the point that I have no more belief in clean elite endurance athletes. I'll just enjoy their performance as athletic entertainment.

I don't believe that. People are going to cheat whether the person before them was caught, or not. They are going to believe that they're exceptional and they'll never get caught. Cheating will continue no matter who is caught.

I'm very close to Trent's opinion on this one. Who cares if athletes use PEDs? What if we legalized them? What if there wasn't a stigma attached to doctors that oversaw their use? What if there was more and better research on PEDs because of that?

I've come to the point that I have no more belief in clean elite endurance athletes. I'll just enjoy their performance as athletic entertainment.

I'm j-j-jaded

In all its misery

It will always be what I loved and hated

Okay, this is a reasonable position, but the USADA's job is to catch dopers. The reason it costs so much in this case is because Lance Armstrong has the best legal representation $$ can buy, and he has been totally uncooperative from the beginning and unwilling to help the USADA do their job.

If you are upset about the $$ that is being spent on this case, that seems to me to be reason to be upset at Lance, rather than the agency whose sole mission is to enforce existing rules about PEDs in sport.

I would be open to changing those PED rules, but those rules were very clear at the time Lance rode, and he broke them. If he had admitted this early on, we would be way past it by now, and my guess is that Lance would not only be a hero to the perhaps majority of people who continue to admire him, but also to those of us who have lost their taste for him.

I don't think there is any great drive to tear this guy down, as he and his lawyers continue to assert. Quite the opposite, really. Lots and lots and LOTS of people really wanted him to be clean, but most who have a clue have pretty much given in to the mountains of evidence to the contrary.

I actually think the USADA goes after just about everyone they strongly suspect of doping and the fact that just about EVERYONE involved with cycling at that level has been busted EXCEPT Lance Armstrong is quite remarkable, even given how many people stand to gain from him remaining "clean" in the public's eye.

He presents a very interesting test of how much we really want our sports to be clean. Yes, he survived cancer and he won all those tours and inspired millions of people (myself included) and raised many millions of dollars for great causes, and provided loads of entertainment, and created careers and launched industries and charitable foundations and all of that. And we all want badly for all of that to not be a lie. But some things really are too good to be true.

No great drive? C'mon now. He won his last Tour 7 years ago. While there are millions of supporters (I among them), you cannot deny that there are lots of people who seem to take personally the fact that he has neither admitted doping nor been convicted. The U.S. government spent 2 years investigating him and let it drop. So now the USADA is going to come riding in with some who-knows-what process to strip him of his titles? It's silly. You can choose to believe what you want. I personally couldn't give a nut if he doped because that would just be leveling the playing field (and if we are convinced that all of the TdF riders were dirty, why not just wipe those years from the books entirely?) Either he was dirty and beat a bunch of dirty riders or he was clean and beat a bunch of dirty riders.

The comments so far are enlightening. His cancer was "not that bad." LiveStrong doesn't really support research. His story is too good to be true. There is a very personal element to all of these attacks that is kind of sad. The sole purpose of this charade is to strip him of his titles. Seems petty to me and one wonders about the motives of Travis Tygart, head of the USADA and whether this is really an attempt to be the guy who "finally got Lance."

With a budget of $13 million, 70% funded by taxpayers, I'd rather see the USADA devote its time and effort toward ensuring clean competition going forward. There is more than enough to do on that front.

(testicular cancer IS one of the more treatable cancers. I won't say 'curable' like spaniel did because tumor cells are little rat bastards. But his was advanced, metastasized to important places like brain and lungs, and he went through some stuff that was the opposite of not that bad. Pretty sure that we all get that at some level.)

>> LiveStrong doesn't really support research.

Spaniel didn't write that. He wrote this: "He doesn't raise millions for cancer research, however." I don't know if I agree with spaniel, but I can tell the difference between what he wrote and what you wrote.

>> His story is too good to be true.

That one may or may not be aimed at me. Dude, as a 5 time winner in this particular lottery, let me just say that chemo, radiation, and stuff like invasive surgery fucks you up. Permanent like. I don't know if he managed to set that aside or not, but I can buy into the idea that people wonder. I try to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I find it curious that people run to his defense regarding cheating because... he beat cancer. It isn't hard to see both sides of this one.